The Boy from the Woods Read online

  Wilde wanted so very much to play a small air violin. “This is all awful,” Wilde said, “but I’m still not sure why you were so concerned when she went missing.”

  “Because I’m not done with the story.”

  Tears flooded the boy’s eyes. Wilde felt his heart drop.

  “I’m going to skip the excuses, okay? Because there is no excuse. I got a small taste of what Naomi went through for years. Just a small taste. And I couldn’t take it. So when Crash came to me with a way to get back into their good graces, I took it. That’s all that matters. Not why. Just that I did it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It was a prank.”

  “What was?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Matthew?”

  “I asked Naomi to meet me. Like, on a date. I texted that I wanted to see her again, not to tell anyone, at that same spot behind the Maynards’.”

  “How did she reply?”

  “She said yes.” He shrugged. “She seemed excited.”

  Matthew closed his eyes.

  Wilde worked hard to keep his expression neutral. “And?”

  “And I pranked her.”

  “How?”

  “I sort of didn’t show.”

  “Hey, Matthew?”

  Matthew looked up.

  “This isn’t a time to be cute with your wording. What do you mean, sort of didn’t show?”

  “I didn’t show. And I was supposed to ghost her so when she texted me ‘where are you’ I wasn’t supposed to reply.”

  “But you did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. She never spoke to me again.”

  He flashed back to that basement. Naomi’s words about Matthew: “He probably blames himself. Tell him he shouldn’t. He just wants to fit in too.”

  Maybe Naomi forgave him, and maybe Matthew was looking for absolution, but Wilde wasn’t about to be the one to give it to him.

  “So what happened when Naomi went to the brook by herself?”

  “Crash showed up. Others in the group.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t know. Or at least I didn’t. That’s why I contacted Nana. The next day, Naomi vanished. I thought…well, I don’t know what I thought. I thought they’d done something to her.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, I don’t know,” he said, throwing up his hands. “But it ends up, Naomi was okay. You found her. Crash just told her about that stupid Challenge game. Got her to go along with it. That’s all.”

  Wilde heard what he thought might be a car pulling into the driveway. He moved down the hall and looked out the window. A tall man in obvious designer threads got out on the driver’s side of a shiny black Mercedes-Benz SL 550. He hurried to the passenger side, hoping to be ever the gallant gentleman, but Laila had already opened the door and gotten out too.

  So that was why Laila had told Wilde she’d be out late.

  Without another word, Wilde padded down the stairs and out the back door. Matthew would get it. They’d all been here before. Laila wouldn’t bring Designer Threads into the house. Not yet. Not with Matthew home. But she’d ask Wilde to stay away from her for a while and Wilde would and Laila would try and in the end it wouldn’t happen. Wilde shouldn’t wish for that. He told himself he didn’t, that he just wanted Laila happy. But for now, Laila would give this guy a go—and Wilde would take up with other women. He’d still see Laila platonically—she’d never want him out of her or especially Matthew’s life—and then one day Designer Threads would be gone and Wilde would stay the night. Maybe that cycle was okay. Maybe that was how it was supposed to be. Or maybe Wilde should make himself less available and not be such a convenient out for her. Maybe he made it too easy for her to give up on a new relationship. Maybe not. Maybe she’s better off with Wilde and she should forget Designer Threads. Maybe Wilde was self-rationalizing. And maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t be deciding what Laila really wants or needs or what’s best for her.

  Meanwhile it was late. He’d find Ava O’Brien in the morning. Maybe there’d be something there. Maybe, he thought as he paused and listened to the Mercedes pulling out of the driveway, he meant that in two ways.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  The first thing Wilde did when he rose at five a.m. was to check his text messages. There were none. Naomi had still not replied to his text. What did that mean? He had no idea.

  Wilde threw on shorts and stretched in front of the Ecocapsule. The morning air was crisp. He sucked in a deep breath, felt the tingle. Wilde started most days with a walk-run through the woods. When he reached a peak, he took out the phone and texted Ava O’Brien and asked to see her at school. It was only five fifteen so he didn’t expect an answer, but Ava was an early riser too, he remembered, as he watched the dancing dots indicating a response was coming soon. She suggested the teacher parking entrance behind the high school at one p.m. Wilde typed back:

  We are both up. How about I come over now?

  Again the dancing dots. Then: Not a good time.

  Wilde remembered the big bearded man and nodded to himself: One PM. Teacher parking entrance.

  He finished up his hike, set up a lawn chair, started reading. He had been a voracious reader for as long as he could remember. When the park rangers found him all those years ago, Wilde could already read, something that had perplexed the experts. Surely, they claimed, the only explanation was that the young boy was lying or confused—someone had fed him and clothed him and educated him. He couldn’t have taught himself to read. But as far as Wilde knew, he had. He’d broken into homes and watched television, including so-called educational television shows like Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow. More to the point, in one house he’d found educational videotapes on how to teach your child to read.

  That, he was sure, was how he’d learned to read.

  Which brought him back to the DNA genealogy test.

  He hadn’t yet looked at the results. Did he want to? Did he need that confusion in his life? He was content as he was. He liked being a minimalist in every way, including the people in his life. So why open that door?

  Was he curious?

  He put down his book. It was a hardcover novel. He mostly read actual physical books rather than something on an e-reader, not because he disliked the technology or enjoyed the tactile experience of turning pages, but simply because he used enough electronic equipment up here and so printed material, read and then donated, served him best.

  He found the email from the DNA site. Two months ago, he’d signed up under an alias and spit into the test tube. Wilde had several fake aliases. They were in metal storage boxes, advertised as both fire- and waterproof, buried in the woods within a hundred yards of here. There was also cash in the boxes, plus bank accounts in all those names, plenty of easy ways for Wilde to vanish if need be.

  He clicked the link and then he typed in the username and password he’d set up when he sent in his DNA sample. It led to a page announcing his Ancestry Composition, which in his case was all over the place, the largest percentage being vaguely “Eastern European.” So what did that tell him? Nothing. Did it change the way he felt or get him closer to any truth? Nope, not really.

  The smaller banner under his Ancestry Composition read:

  You have over a hundred relatives! Click the link to learn more!

  Should he?

  His mother or father could be behind that click. Wow, when you first thought about that. But then again, so what if they were? Most people sought these answers because they felt as though something was missing, that the answers could somehow fill some vague void. Most people wanted more people in their lives—more family, more relatives. Wilde did not. So why open this particular Pandora’s box?

  Then again, ignorance was never bliss. Wilde firmly believed that. So why not click th
e link? He didn’t need to do more than take a quick peek for now. Just click and see whether the information is out there.

  He tapped down on the link.

  Wilde felt as though he were a contestant on a game show and the hostess was drawing a curtain and maybe there’d be a brand-new car or maybe there’d be nothing.

  It turned out to be a lot closer to nothing.

  There was no mother match, no father match, no full-sibling match, no half-sibling match. In fact, the closest relative listed was a second-to-third cousin with the initials PB who shared 2.44 percent of Wilde’s DNA and eight segments. There was a small graph with the following explanation:

  You and PB may share a set of great-grandparents. You could also be from different generations (removed cousins) or share only one ancestor (half cousins).

  It was something more than nothing, but not a lot more. He could, he guessed, contact PB and start working up some kind of family tree, but right now, today, with Naomi running away and Matthew deservedly haunted by what he’d done to her and Laila dating Designer Threads (not that he cared about that last one, he reminded himself), the idea exhausted him.

  It could wait.

  Wilde hadn’t been back to Sweet Water High School since his own graduation. As he got closer, the ghosts joined him. Or at least, one ghost. He could almost feel David, Matthew’s father, sidle up next to him. They’d walked like this together pretty much every day until David got his license during their junior year and drove them. The memories moved in for the kill, but Wilde battled back.

  Not now. No distractions.

  There had been no security guards when Wilde had attended. That wasn’t the case anymore. The crisply uniformed rent-a-cops were both serious and armed. They had their eyes on him the moment he hit the main road. Wilde took the most visible approach, smiling and keeping his hands in plain view.

  Hands in plain view approaching a high school. What a world.

  “What can we do for you?” the taller cop asked.

  “I’m supposed to meet Ava O’Brien in the teacher lot.”

  The other rent-a-cop sported a pencil-drawn mustache and looked young enough to be, if not still a student here, that guy who graduated a year or two earlier and spends all his time cruising around town in a beat-up sedan. He checked his clipboard for Wilde’s name while the taller cop tried to stare him down. Wilde didn’t mind that or the pat-down or the pocket emptying or the stroll through the metal detector. Sad how the world was now—really, did you want to arm two guys like this and stick them near a school? Do we really want to protect our children by giving guns to two underpaid cop wannabes and then mixing them in with a bunch of wiseass teens? Seemed a recipe for disaster. Wilde had worked in the security industry, so he knew that a lot of his competitors stoked these parental fears so they could cash in with big school contracts.

  Create the problem—then monetize the solution.

  The young armed guard made a phone call, and two minutes later, Ava O’Brien was leading him down a corridor. He liked the way Ava walked, which might seem like an odd thing to be thinking about, but there it was. She looked beautiful and strong.

  It must have been between classes because the only sound was their feet on the linoleum. Wilde flashed back to his own years in these hallways. He still knew his way, of course. Do you ever forget? When they passed the gymnasium, Ava gestured to the portraits on the wall.

  “I get to see your face every day.”

  There were probably fifty faces under the listing “Sweet Water Sports Hall of Fame.” Wilde had been inducted under Track and Field. He didn’t attend the ceremony. Not his scene. During his senior year, Wilde had set almost every running record in the school—hurdles, sprints, miles. The school’s football coach tried to convince him to go for tailback, but Wilde didn’t like team sports with their comradery and rah-rah high fives. He didn’t like the football team in particular. Too tribal and clan-like.

  “You look angry in the picture,” Ava said.

  “I was aiming for macho.”

  She studied it a second. “I’d say you didn’t hit that mark.”

  “I rarely do.”

  His eyes scanned down the plaques searching for Rola Naser. It didn’t take long. Rola’s beaming smile—no attempt at macho here—hit him like a sunburst. That was how Rola Naser was—beaming, loquacious, earnest, enthusiastic—even at home. Pretty much the opposite of Wilde. Maybe that was a forced facade, her way of compensating for her upbringing, but if so, Wilde rarely saw her break character.

  “Soccer captain,” Ava said, following his eyes and reading Rola’s plaque. “Wow, she was an all-American?”

  “Rola was the best soccer player the school ever had.”

  “Was she a close friend?”

  “Sister,” Wilde said. Then: “Foster sister.”

  Ava led him into a classroom-cum-art-studio. There were splashes of color everywhere. Wilde took it all in. The room was comforting, what with the creations of the über-amateurish blended in with the super-gifted, the half-baked sculptures with works that could find a place in a museum. There was just life here. Lots of life.

  “So I checked already,” Ava began.

  Her tone was matter-of-fact. Wilde waited.

  “Naomi has been out for a few days,” Ava said. “The absences are unexcused. The school has sent out warnings by email.”

  “I heard it was bad when she got back from the last disappearance.”

  “Heard from whom?”

  “Her father,” he said. No reason to bring Matthew in. Wilde quickly updated her on the rest—Bernard Pine reaching out to him, Naomi’s bedroom, the missing clothes and backpack.

  “Yeah, it was bad,” she said when he finished. “As expected.”

  “How did Naomi react?”

  “To the bullying?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Naomi, I don’t know, maybe she became withdrawn. I tried to get her to open up, but she didn’t share much.”

  “Was there anyone else she might have talked to?”

  “Not that I know of.” Ava tilted her head. “She told me you were the one who found her. She said you two talked in her basement.”

  “Yes.”

  “She liked you, Wilde.”

  “I liked her too.”

  “Did she tell you why she went along with that awful game?”

  “She hoped that it would be a reset,” Wilde said.

  “A reset?”

  “A way to start again with her classmates. A do-over. She thought that maybe if she did it, really made a splash, everyone would look at her differently.”

  Ava shook her head. “I get it, but…”

  Wilde said nothing.

  “I wish these kids could understand how short high school is,” she said.

  “They can’t.”

  “I know. My grandfather up in Maine turned ninety-two recently. I asked him what that was like—reaching that age. He said it’s a finger snap. He said, ‘One day I turned eighteen. I joined the army. I headed south to basic training. And now I’m here.’ That fast. That’s what he said. Like he got onto a bus with his duffle bag in 1948 and he got off now.”

  “He sounds like a cool guy,” Wilde said.

  “He is. I’m not sure why I told you that, except that if it’s hard for us, two adults, to believe that—that our lives are going to whiz by that fast—it’s impossible to convince a bullied sixteen-year-old girl that the world isn’t this stupid high school.”

  Wilde nodded. “So do you have any thoughts on where Naomi is?”

  “I think we both agree she probably ran away.”

  “Probably.”

  Ava asked, “Did you try her mother?”

  “I thought you said—”

  “Yeah, I know. But that was before. What Naomi said to you about starting over? She said something like that to me too. But after what happened with that Challenge game, she knew that it couldn’t happen here, in this town. The fresh start meant a f
resh place.”

  “So you think she could be with her mom?”

  “Naomi told me her mother was going on a trip. I didn’t really think about it at the time, but maybe there was longing in her voice.”

  “Do you know where the mother was going?”

  “Just overseas.”

  “Okay, I’ll reach out.”

  Ava looked at her watch. Wilde caught the hint.

  “You probably have a class,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Then: “About those texts I sent you the other night.”

  Wilde knew the ones she meant, of course: Come over tonight. I’ll leave the door unlocked. And then: I miss you, Wilde.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wouldn’t want anything more than we had. I just, I mean, I had a lonely moment.”

  “I get them too.”

  “You do?”

  He saw no reason to repeat himself.

  “It was odd,” she said, “what we had. Now isn’t the time. But…”

  “It was nice,” Wilde said. “Really nice.”

  “But it couldn’t last, could it?” She didn’t ask it with regret or anything like that.

  Wilde didn’t respond.

  “It was like one of those vibrant creatures that only survive a short time. A whole life cycle packed into a few days.”

  He thought that was well put. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  They both stood. Neither was sure what to do. Ava stepped toward him and kissed his cheek. He looked in her eyes and almost told her that he was available. Almost. But he didn’t.

  Change the subject: “Do you know the Maynard kid?”

  She blinked, took a step back. “Crash? By reputation.”

  “Which is?”

  “Crappy. He used to torment Naomi, though maybe there was something more.”

  “More?”

  “He doth protest too much methinks,” Ava said in her best Shakespearean accent.

  “Like he had a crush on her?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. He’s dating Sutton Holmes. But I think Naomi fascinates Crash in ways that he probably couldn’t quite articulate himself.”